“Then let’s pay her a visit and see if she knows anything.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Holt farmhouse looked too peaceful for a place tied to murder.
Selena pulled in behind Connor’s SUV and studied the property through the windshield.White siding.Deep porch.Flower baskets hanging from hooks along the rail.A red barn stood beyond the house, its doors shut, its roof catching the morning sun.Past the barn, pastureland rolled toward a line of pines where heat shimmered above the grass.
Idyllic.That was the word people would use if they drove by without knowing why the Sheriff had come.
The moment Selena opened the car door, humidity wrapped around her.The kind of heat that made clothes cling and patience shorten.She stepped out, adjusting the file bag on her shoulder, and immediately sank her right shoe into mud hidden beneath the grass.
Selena looked down.“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Connor had already started toward the porch.At the sound of her voice, he turned and came back.
“Need a hand?”
“No.”
Her shoe shifted deeper when she tried to pull free.
Connor stopped beside her.“Your hero to the rescue.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Stop fussing.”
“Connor.”
Before she could object again, he put his arms around her and lifted her clear of the mud with irritating ease.For one brief second, Selena’s hands caught his shoulders, and the familiar solidity of him cut through the heat and the case and the house waiting ahead.
Then her feet touched safer ground.
Selena stepped back at once and straightened her blouse.“I would’ve gotten out of that.”
“Sure.”
“I would have.”
Connor looked at the muddy shoe.“You’ve spent too much time in the city.You’ve forgotten you always need to watch where you’re walking.”
“Oh, wise country words.”Selena scraped her heel against a patch of dry grass.“Give me concrete and skyscrapers any day.”
“You used to run barefoot around half this county when we were kids.”
“I also used to think gas station nachos counted as dinner.People change.”
“Sometimes.”
The glance he gave her was too warm to be nothing, too careful to be anything she could name.Selena looked toward the farmhouse and moved before the moment stayed too long.
The front porch boards were clean and freshly painted.Someone had swept them that morning or the night before.Two rocking chairs sat near the door, angled toward the fields.A wind chime shifted lazily from one hook, tapping out a thin, uneven sound.
Connor removed his hat before knocking.
The door opened after a few seconds.
A woman in her twenties stood on the other side.Soft brown hair pulled into a loose knot, pale face, red eyes.She wore jeans and an oversized cardigan despite the heat.For a moment, her gaze went straight to Connor and stayed there with the desperate relief people often showed when authority looked familiar.
